Sunday Morning Coming Down

Twenty really good horses will run for the roses on May 5, 2018.  Post position, early pace, and the ability and conditioning to go the mile and a quarter will decide who will win. Another thing that isn't overlooked but often discounted is how well the horse likes Churchill Downs and the racing surface. The following horses have enough points to run in the Kentucky Derby.  Installed Regard and Snapper Sinclair may be added if there are any last minute scratches.  Magnum Moon, Good Magic, Audible,  Noble Indy, Vino Rosso, Bolt d'Oro, Enticed, Mendelssohn, Justify, Flameaway, Solomini, Bravazo, My Boy Jack, Promises Fulfilled, Free Drop Billy, Lone Sailor, Hofburg, Firenze Fire, Combatant, Instilled Regard, Snapper Sinclair AE. I'm leaning towards Mendessohn as my Derby choice based on his performance in the UAE Derby.  My only concern is travel.  It seems the horse travels well but the mile and the crowd may make a difference

It's Sunday and some Unitarians are arguing about religion.  This isn't surprising but it isn't very productive.  I listened to Michelle Wolf roast Sarah Huckabee Sanders, again this wasn't surprising, but it also wasn't very productive.  The comedian might have taken a different tack because even though the press secretary might have done a lot of stuff the press corp doesn't agree with, you must understand who she works for.

While waiting for a phone call to be returned I entered a horse racing handicapping contest.  For $5.75 you had a chance to win some money if your picks kept hitting the board finishing 1st, 2nd, or 3rd at Keeneland Race Track in Lexington, Kentucky.  I have entered contests like this often.  I have won several of these contests.  It fits my handicapping style and doesn't require you to pick long shots.  Just keep plugging along. At times it is a fools errand.  Your choice runs out of the money in the first race and you are sent to the showers or back to the barn.  Sometimes the contest allows to have more than one entry and sometimes you can't change you picks once you have submitted them.  More entries does not always win more often, success is based the quality of your handicapping, the size of the fields, and the number of entries in the contest and in my experience the quality of the races being. On Wednesday I had what might be called so...

I was a true believer when George McGovern ran for president in 1972.  Time when I might have been studying or working I spent at the McGovern headquarters while he ran in the Florida Primary.  Stuffing envelopes, taking folks to the airport, manning a table, or answering the phone was exciting. For my efforts I got a ticket to a fund raiser that would have cost about $25.00 back then.  The speaker wasn't the candidate, he was busy in Wisconsin.  Frank Mankiewicz was the speaker and he spoke warmly of George McGovern and gave the audience a red meat speech as he spoke about other Democratic candidates and Richard Nixon. Before he spoke he visited each table and thanked folks for their money, time, and efforts.  It was an uphill battle all the way as George Wallace won the Florida Primary. Frank went on to head NPR.

A five line poem using my zip code. Beach weather soon Pool water warming Sunscreen Poolside cerveza bien fria Cooler than AC

I noticed the passing of Art Bell who was on the overnight radio for more than a few years.  I listened to him because sometimes it was difficult to sleep or stay asleep.  He wasn't particularly entertaining most of the time because he seemed to drift in to subject matter that was at best borderline crazy. Sometimes I listen to George Noury these days.  All that being said it seems that over night radio hosts had their fans and in a lot of ways fit where they were on the radio.  Larry King had some really good interviews, and my local favorite was Bill Calder.

The last two derby prep races will be run on Saturday at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas and Keeneland in Kentucky. The Arkansas Derby is a $1,000,000 race ad winning it will give you enough points to enter the Kentucky Derby. Many really good horses have run and won the Arkansas Derby, and gone on to win the Kentucky Derby.  The first Arkansas Derby was run in 1936.  Two of the biggest names in horse racing ran in the Arkansas Derby and deserve special mention : American Pharoah who went on the be the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years and Curlin who was a two time Horse of the Year in 2007 and 2008 after winning the Preakness Stakes, the Breeder's Cup Classic in 2007 and the Dubai World Cup in 2008. The 2018 Arkansas Derby will feature the top three finishers in the Rebel Stakes: Magnum Moon, Solomini, and Combatant and the winner of the Tampa Bay Derby Quip.  The winner will most likely come out of that group. The Lexington Stakes is a $200,000 race worth 20 point...

The Wood Memorial, the Santa Anita Derby, and the Bluegrass Stakes will be run Saturday and if all goes well Good Magic will win the Bluegrass Stakes at Keeneland, Bolt d'Oro will win the Santa Anita Derby on the West Coast, and Enticed will win the Wood Memorial which is run at Aqueduct in New York. The Arkansas Derby will be run next Saturday at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas and the probable favorite in that race will be Solomini. The Wood Memorial is named after Eugene Wood, the President of Jamaica Raceway where the race was originally run.  Irish War Cry won the 2017 Wood Memorial.  The race is worth $1,000,000. The race at a 1 1/8 mile will have nine contenders and the other potential winners along with Enticed are Fireneze Fire and Vino Rosso. The Bluegrass Stakes will have a full field of 14 hoping to get enough points to get to the Kentucky Derby.  The winner of the 2017 Bluegrass was Irap and it has been a while since a horse won the Bluegrass and the Kentuck...

There has been some reports about the Sinclair Broadcast Group and the "script" many of its broadcast stations read.  From the Washington Post: "Interest in Sinclair picked up recently after reports exposed a seemingly Trump-friendly script the company ordered its anchors around the country to read, lambasting “irresponsible, one-sided,” and “fake” news stories. The one-minute-long script, which appeared to echo Trump’s efforts to attack the reporting he has disagreed with as “fake news,” brought to the fore longstanding critiques about what many see as the company’s rightward tilt." Publishers publish, broadcasters broadcast but the idea that all "news" that you disagree with or find painful is "fake news" is a dangerous trend in journalism. There are almost always two or more sides to every story and journalists need to be aware of this.  Unfortunately, for a number of reasons responsible journalism has taken a hit and opin...